Welcome to the
Year 1 Phonics
Parents Meeting
1.12.15
Aims of the Session
 To examine the importance of phonics
• To look at the assessment and reporting
arrangements (Year 1 phonics screening
check)
• To discuss how phonics knowledge has an
impact on both reading and writing
• How you can support your child’s learning in
phonics
Synthetic phonics
‘Synthetic phonics refers to an approach to the teaching
of reading in which the sounds [phonemes] associated
with particular letters [graphemes] are pronounced in
isolation and blended together (synthesised). For
example, children are taught to take a single-syllable
word such as cat apart into its three letters, pronounce
a phoneme for each letter in turn /c, a, t/, and blend
the phonemes together to form a word. Synthetic
phonics for writing reverses the sequence: children are
taught to say the word they wish to write, segment it
into its phonemes and say them in turn, for example
/d, o, g/, and write a grapheme for each phoneme in
turn to produce the written word, dog.’
Definition adopted by the Rose Report
Key facts
The English Alphabetic Code
 The English language uses approximately 44
sounds.
(20 vowels and 24 consonants)
 The English Alphabet has 26 letters
 English uses combinations of letters to represent
single sounds.
 There are 140 ways of combining letters to create
the 44 sounds.
Letters
and
 Letters: a b
c d e fphonemes
ghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
 44 phonemes: /b/ /k/ /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /p/ /r/ /s/
/t/ / v/ /w/ /y/ /z/ /sh/ /ch/ /th/ /th/ /ng/ /zh/
/a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ /ai/ /ee/ /igh/ /oa/ /oo/ /oo/ /ow/ /oi/ /ar/
/or/ /ur/ /air/ /ear/ /ure/ /er/
 Some of 140 letter combinations illustrated in
words:
Cat, peg, pig, log, put,
pain, day, gate, station
burn, first, term, heard, work,
haul, law, call,
tried, light, my,
slaughter
key principles
 Phonemes are represented by letters (grapheme)
A child needs to learn the letters that make up each
sound, this is known as phoneme-grapheme
representation.
Phonemes can be in the initial, medial or final position
of a word. E.g. sat
 A phoneme can be represented by one or more
letters
A single phoneme represented by 2 letters or more e.g.
ch - ai - n
Digraph
Two letters, which make one sound
A consonant digraph contains two consonants
sh ck
th
ll
A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel also known as long
vowel phoneme
ai ee
ar
oy
Trigraph
Three letters, which make one sound
igh
dge
key principles
 The same phoneme can be
represented/spelled in more than one way
This very common particularly among the
vowels, e.g. rain, may, lake
 The same spelling may represent more than
one phoneme
E.g. mean, deaf This is where children need to
learn to use the skill of making sense of the text.
Adjacent consonants
 Formally known as blends
 Letter combinations where each letter makes an
individual sound
 sp
st
tr
ft
mp
un
cl
sw
e.g. step
list
sk
nt
lp
cr
sl
lt
dr
sm
clap grasp strap
Split digraph
A digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent
(e.g. make)
a_e
e_e
i_e o_e u_e
Letters and sounds teaching
What each Phase covers
1. General sound discrimination – environmental,
instrumental and body percussion; rhythm and
rhyme; alliteration; voice sounds; oral segmenting
and blending.
2. Know that sounds are represented by letters –
recognise 19 letters and know one sound for
each; oral segmenting and blending of CV and
CVC; segmenting and blending of CV and CVC
words using 19 letters including double letters.
3. Know an additional six letter-sound
correspondences
4. To practise previous phases; to blend and
segment consonants in words
5. Use alternative spellings for long vowel
sounds (ow, oa o-e). Read and spell
two/three syllable words which are
phonically decodable.
6. Apply phonic skills and knowledge to
recognise and spell an increasing number
of complex words. Prefixes/suffixes and
singular and plural words/spelling rules
Year 1 Screening Check
 Statutory assessment for all Year 1
children
Week in June
Designed to confirm whether individual
children have learnt phonic decoding to
an appropriate standard
Children who do not achieve will then be
expected to retake the test at the end of
Year 2 and beyond (November 2015)
What does the test consist of?
Two sections
40 words
No time limit
1:1 basis
 A combination of real and non-
words
Sections of the test
Section 1
 letter – sound correspondences
 Simple word structures
Section 2
 Letter and sound that correspond to
more than one sound e.g ea – mean,
deaf
 More complex word structures, including
two syllable words
Section 1
 Letter - sound correspondences
vap
best
peck
plan
 Simple word structures (CVC, CCVC)
gang
week
chom
quemp
Section 2
 Letters – that correspond to more than one
sound
terg
phone
jound
day
 More complex word structures, including two
syllable words
dentist
finger
rusty
starling
Reporting to Parents
 Teachers must tell parents whether their
child has met the required standard by
the end of the summer term.
 Phonics mark out of 40 with a pass
threshold that is announced after the test
What Year 1 children need to know:
• the letter-sound (grapheme-phoneme)
correspondences
• How to blend sounds (phonemes) through a word in
order to read
• How to segment words into their sounds (phonemes)
to spell them
• How to use analogy – something you recognise to
get to something new (including rhyme) (cat, sat,
mat)
• How to recognise familiar words and their meanings
(sight vocabulary/high frequency words)
How you can help your child
 Model how to blend words
 Point out digraphs and trigraphs
 Draw attention to alternative graphemes (oa, ow)
 Practise reading high frequency/tricky words that
cannot be sounded out
 Make up words using sounds to practise
reading ‘non’ words to build confidence
 When sounding out a blend, encourage children
to say the two sounds as one unit, so fl-a-g not
f-l-a-g. This will lead to greater fluency when
reading.
Last year we achieved 100% in our Phonics test.
A final thought – reading and understanding the
text is much more important than just decoding
words. We are very happy to move children on
when they are secure with the skills they need to
be a good reader and are making important links
with reading and writing.
Our aim is that children can read books fluently
with good understanding and comprehension.
Above all we want children to enjoy reading and
to develop a love of books.
Thank you for coming.